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A new Conservative councillor for one of Scotland’s poorest communities has expressed his shock at being elected as his party won in a series of areas where they have never taken seats.

Thomas Kerr said Scots wanted to send a message to Nicola Sturgeon that they did not want another independence referendum after he became the Tories first councillor to ever be elected in the Shettleston area of Glasgow.

The Conservatives also won seats in the extremely deprived Calton ward of the city and in Paisley’s Ferguslie Park, Scotland’s poorest community.

In a series of eyebrow-raising results, the Tories also won a seat in Cowdenbeath, where last year the UK’s last elected Communist stood down, and even in Ravenscraig.

The latter is a name synonymous with Scotland’s industrial decline after John Major’s government controversially closed the British Steel plant there in 1992.

In the Highlands, North Lanarkshire and Midlothian, the Tories went from having no councillors to substantial groups of them and they also won their first seat in the Western Isles. They also surged to second place in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

But Ms Sturgeon's father, Robin, missed out on a seat in North Ayrshire Council. The prominent SNP activist failed to pick up enough votes for the Irvine South ward.

Mr Kerr said: “When you stand as a candidate for the Conservatives in the east end of Glasgow you don't expect something like this to happen, but I think people recognised I'm a local voice and will stand up for local issues.

In Aberdeenshire they took nine more seats, taking their total to 23, while the SNP lost eight seats to 21. They also extended their advantage by three on Dumfries and Galloway Council, taking their total to 16.

In Perth and Kinross, they took seven more seats and a total of 17, while the SNP fell back to 15. The Tories are hoping to oust Pete Wishart, the controversial SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire, on June 8.

The Tories won two more seats and a total of seven in another key general election target, East Renfrewshire. They also outpolled Labour, which is also targeting the seat, by a margin of two to one.

In Edinburgh, the Conservatives took seven more seats when boundary changes are taken into account and a total of 18. This was only one behind the SNP’s total and six more than Labour.

The SNP became the largest party at Aberdeen City Council with 19 councillors, a gain of three from five years ago. Labour was down by eight on nine, while the Tories moved into second place with 11 councillors.

That meant the Nationalists failed to achieve Alex Salmond’s stated aim of wining overall control of the Granite City.

They also failed to win a majority in Glasgow, winning eight more seats for a total of 39. Labour lost 16 seats, giving it 31 councillors, while the Tories increased their tally from one to eight and the Greens from four to seven.